Star Wars The Chronicles of Horn
by Corey B
Summary: This story takes place just before the X Wing book series. It is the story of Corran Horn before he joins Rogue Squadron. Chapter 5 is now up! It's kind of short, but the next chapter will be out soon. Please R&R. I may turn this into a book and need feed
1. Chapter 1

Star Wars

The Chronicles of Horn

Corran Horn sat in the cockpit of his X-wing staring blankly at the colorless beauty of hyperspace. Whistler, Corran's faithful R2 unit, chirped meekly, but Corran, lost in thought, took no notice. It had only been two days since Corran's secret departure from Corellia and his life in the Corellian Security Force, or CorSec. He had not only left behind his job though, he had left his partner, Iella Wessiri and her husband, Diric, his greatest friends. Iella helped Corran find himself after his father, Hal, was killed by Bossk, the Trandoshan bounty hunter.

Now, Corran was alone with almost no worldly possessions. _Well, at least I still have Whistler, _he thought. It was true that being on the run in an X-wing was far better than being in an Imperial prison. Corran's blood boiled when he thought about Kirtan Loor, the loathsome Imperial officer who was assigned to enforce the will of the Empire in CorSec. From the moment Loor and Horn had set eyes on each other, there had been a mutual enmity between them. This hatred grew and festered until the day when Corran, flush with victory, brought Bossk in for sentencing, only to see him released on Loor's orders. It had taken all of Corran's self-control to keep from frying Loor right on the spot.

Only a short time later, Gil Bastra, CorSec's director, realized that Loor was planning to have Iella, Corran, and Gil arrested on false charges. Gil and Corran had long been rivals, but they both harbored a deep loathing for Kirtan Loor. Gil approached Corran one day and told him of Loor's plan. Bastra also offered to make Corran a new identity, and along with himself, Iella, and Diric, arrange for safe passage to a secure system. The catch was that they would be separated for their own safety. Iella and Diric were off to an unknown destination while Corran was on his way to Tatooine to start his humble life as a moisture farmer. Gil had certainly found the perfect way to torment Corran at the same time as saving him.

Whistler beeped and chirped again, this time more insistently.

"What is it Whistler," said Corran, breaking his reverie.

Whistler warbled and an icon blinked on the screen.

"Thirty seconds until reversion to realspace? I thought that we weren't supposed to arrive for twenty more minutes," said Corran with a confused expression on his face.

The small astromech droid tooted proudly about managing to give the hyperdrive engine a boost.

"Yes, I'm pleased." Corran rolled his eyes. " Beginning the countdown until reversion to realspace. Three…two…one…Mark!"

The kaleidoscope of hyperspace became thousands of white lines. These shortened into the individual pinpricks of stars. The X-wing streaked towards an ugly brown planet that looked like nothing more than a ball of dirt. In essence, the planet of Tatooine, which orbited the twin stars, Tatoo I and Tatoo II, _was_ just a ball of dirt.

"Set a course for Mos Eisley" said Corran in a somewhat disgusted voice. _Who would want to live here in the first place?_

The planet grew larger in the viewscreen as Corran took the ship closer to the cesspit of a star port called Mos Eisley. Just before the ship entered the atmosphere, whistler squealed a frantic warning. Corran looked at his scopes.

"Sithspawn! Since when did the Imps station Star Destroyers around this dust ball," he asked no one in particular.

Suddenly, a cold, pompous voice came over the comm unit. "Attention unidentified X-wing, this is the Star Destroyer _Watcher_. Turn to heading three-point-two-nine immediately and prepare to be brought into our primary hangar or we will take you by force. Resistance is futile." As the voice signed off, the coordinates it had given appeared on the monitor.

_Well, it can't hurt to bluff,_ thought Corran. He activated the commlink and hailed the Star Destroyer "This is X-wing T-65-0718-G calling the _Watcher_. Why am I being asked to board? This is a registered civilian vessel with no military background." Corran tried to sound curious and slightly defensive like any pilot being waylaid for no reason.

"If that is true, you have nothing to worry about," said the Imperial flight controller waspishly. "However, this system has had an increasing amount of Rebel activity and, as you are in one of the Rebel Alliance's primary starfighters, protocol states that you must be investigated. Also, the markings on your X-wing are identical to the ones on the ship of an outlaw from Corellia. You will stand down and prepare to be guided into our main hold. _Watcher_, out."

_Loor must have sent out a galaxy wide warrant,_ thought Corran. _I guess I have no choice but to head to another planet and hope that the Imps haven't popped up there too._ Corran locked his S-foils in attack position and pulled back on the stick. He performed a flip so he was flying back along his original trajectory. He glanced at his sensors and noticed that the Star Destroyer was releasing TIE fighters…half a wing of them. This was starting to look very bad.

"Whistler, set a course for the Onderon system," said Corran frantically.

Whistler beeped and warbled. His reply scrolled across the display in the cockpit.

"Five minutes," Corran shouted. "That ship's releasing TIEs! They'll be all over us in half that time!"

Corran realized that he was going to have to hold off the enemy starfighters for at least two minutes. One X-wing against thirty-six Ties could not end well. Corran flipped a switch that put his lasers into quad-fire mode. While this setting made the lasers slower to fire, one well-placed shot could destroy a TIE fighter.

In the group of fighters released from the _Watcher_ were two squadrons of TIE fighters and one squadron of TIE interceptors. Corran knew that the fighters would be unlikely to catch him before he jumped back into hyperspace, but the faster interceptors would be on him in seconds.

Whistler screeched a warning that an interceptor was on their tail. Corran responded by cutting his thrust back to ten percent and letting the interceptor overshoot him. When the small craft blasted by, Corran quickly skewered it in his crosshairs and fired. One of the four laser blasts hit the pylon that attached one of the TIE's canted wings to its ball cockpit. The blast sheared the wing off and sent the interceptor into a spin. Two more of the lasers glanced off the side of the cockpit, but the final blast hit the interceptor's twin ion engines directly. There was a bright flash of light as the interceptor exploded, pelting Corran's particle shields with debris.

"Whistler, how much longer," Corran asked while switching over to proton torpedoes.

Whistler blatted harshly at him.

"I know you're going as fast as you possibly can," said Corran consolingly. "I just want to know how many more Ties I have to kill before we can get out of here."

Whistler put a countdown on the display screen.

"Two minutes," mumbled Corran distractedly. "Okay, this might work."

Corran stomped on the etheric rudder pedal and his ship swung to starboard. Another interceptor was lined up nicely in his sights and he spitted it in his targeting brackets. Whistler started beeping as he tried to acquire a target lock and the brackets turned green. The interceptor started juking around, but Corran managed to keep it in his sights as Whistler's tone got faster and the brackets turned yellow. After another two or three seconds, Whistler's tone became constant and the brackets turned red. Corran launched a torpedo, which chased the interceptor for almost a kilometer before slamming into the interceptor's cockpit and exploding.

"Two down and ten to go with one minute and forty seconds until _we_ get to go," said Corran in a tense voice. _This isn't over yet._

Two more TIEs managed to lock on to Corran's ship and started firing. Corran performed a quick snaproll and came up behind the two fighters that had just been tailing him. One of the TIEs was faster and more perceptive. It veered away quickly only to be caught by the explosion of the other TIE, which had just taken a hit from one of Corran's proton torpedoes.

Whistler suddenly let out a triumphant string of beeps and toots.

"Coordinates set," said Corran with great relief. "Making the jump to lightspeed. Onderon, here we come!"

_End of chapter one._


	2. Chapter 2

Star Wars

The Chronicles of Horn

Chapter 2 

Corran let out a huge sigh of relief. He was puzzled at the Star Destroyer's presence at Tatooine. His encounter with the TIE fighters could have been disastrous. _What am I going to do now,_ he thought. _I can always sell my X-Wing and buy a freighter. Gil's plan is still good if I can just get on Tatooine without being detected._

"Easier said than done," Corran thought out loud. Whistler beeped out a question. "No Whistler, I was just thinking out loud."

After a few more minutes of silence, Corran began to wonder about his choice of Onderon as his destination. His father had always told him to take his hunches and gut feelings seriously, and they hadn't let him down yet.

"Whistler, pull up all the data you can find on Onderon. I want to know what we're getting into"

An information display scrolled across the screen.

Onderon: A large planet with several moons in close orbit. One of the moons, Dxun, shares atmosphere with the planet. The planet is sparsely settled with only one starport, the city of Iziz. Onderon is ruled by a monarchy. The current ruler is King Argan Talia IV. Onderon has been removed from galactic events for many centuries, although it played a major roll in the Sith Wars four millennia ago. The moon Dxun has several Sith tombs on its surface. The most prominent of these is the tomb of Freedon Nadd, the Sith Lord who conquered Onderon and began the royal bloodline that still exists today…

The display went on like this for quite some time, but nothing interesting came up.

"Great," Corran said sarcastically, "Now we're going to an old Sith stronghold. Things can't get much better than this."

After a few hours in hyperspace, Whistler chimed his usual warning that meant it was time to reenter realspace. Corran hit the controls and watched as the starlines resolved into individual points of light. He was immediately greeted by a much more impressive sight thanthe one he saw when he approached Tatooine. The planet was large and dominated by green. The nearest moon also had green over most of its landscape, though it seemed much darker and gave Corran the chills.

"This is Onderon flight controller to incoming starfighter," said a voice from the comm. It sounded angry. "You are intruding in Onderon space. State your purpose or you will be destroyed."

"This is Jake Gasrin," said Corran, using his false identity. "I have no hostile intent, I simply need a place to land and refuel."

"Denied. No ships that do not hail from Onderon can land. For all we know, you can be a spy. You have two options. First, you can turn to bearing ninety-three-dash-oh-four and dock with the freighter. There, you will be imprisoned until a trial can be arranged. Second, you can try to escape and be shot down; it's your choice. Onderon control, out."

"_Sithspit,_" Corran said vehemently. "This just keeps getting better."

Corran looked at his HUD and his stomach dropped. There were two squadrons of Z-95 Headhunters coming towards him…and one squadron was at the hyperspace jump point. Corran knew that he could never hope to beat them all, but his instincts told him that he would be killed if he turned himself in as well. _Well, what can I expect from a government started by a Sith?_

"Whistler, we're probably not going to get out of this, but I'm _not _going down without a fight."

Corran turned his starfighter towards the hyperspace jump point. He knew that if he had any chance of escape, it would be there. The first wave of Headhunters would be on him in a few seconds, so Corran locked his S-foils in attack position and set his lasers to dual fire. He bracketed one Headhunter and waited until it was within his range. As soon as the targeting reticule went red, Corran fired. Twin bolts of coherent light shot towards the oncoming fighter. The first two blasts were absorbed by the Headhunter's shields, but the second set bored straight into the cockpit, disintegrating computers, components, and pilot in a nanosecond. Corran did not watch to make sure that the craft was dead though, he turned to the next in formation and tightened up on the trigger. The second Headhunter had started firing, but the shots were deflected by Corrans stronger shields. Still, his shields could not hold out a barrage forever. Corran did not dare pour all of his shield power into the front though, he still had the squadron coming up from behind to contend with. Just as he was about to shoot down the second Headhunter, his ship shook violently and all of the systems went dead. One of the ships from the second squadron had launched a concussion missile.

"Whistler, why didn't our HUD pick that up?" Corran started hacking as smoke filled the cockpit. There was only one explanation as to why the HUD didn't detect a target lock. The missile had been dumb fired. The HUD couldn't detect a lock that didn't exist. Life support was failing fast.

"Whisler, what's our engine status?" The droid tooted mournfully. Zero engines.

Whistler was working frantically to repair as much as he could. He managed to get the life support back online and Corran sighed in relief as the smoke was vented from the cockpit. Now that the view was unobstructed, Corran could see that they were tumbling towards Dxun. The Headhunters had obviously left him for dead…or soon to be dead.

"Whistler, how are our repulsorlifts? Can we land on Dxun safely after we enter its atmosphere?"

Whistler beeped that the repulsolifts were functional. Corran now had to wait as they drifted closer and closer to the dark and foreboding surface of Dxun. Corran suddenly recalled the information on Dxun. Towards the end of the data stream, Dxun had been referred to as "the Beast Moon."

"Whistler," said Corran with trepidation. "Why is Dxun called the Beast Moon?"

Whistler's reply filled Corran with dread. The data spoke of cannocks, bomas, zakkegs, and, worst of all, drexyls. All of them were described as fearsome predators. Corran looked at the rangefinder and activated his repulsorlifts. Now almost touching the moon's surface, Corran looked again at the dark trees and imagined the terrible beasts that called them home.

The ship settled down to the ground and Corran unclasped his safety harness. He sat for a moment and decided whether he really wanted to get out. Eventually he decided that the ship wouldn't repair itself and popped the hatch. After he had stretched his legs for a moment, Corran drew his blaster and stepped around to the rear of the ship to survey the damage. Whistler had come out of his droid socket and was twittering loudly at Corran to let him down. Something nearby roared.

"Shut up!" Corran said to Whistler. " I'll get you down in a minute but attracting something big and nasty won't help us."

Corran climbed up the fuselage and helped Whistler down. After the droid was safely on the ground, Corran went back to examining the ship. It was lucky that Corran had left his rear shields up as they had taken the brunt of the blast. There was plenty of damage, but little of itwas irreparable. Corran was actually starting to feel happy until he noticed the fuel lines. They were utterly vaporized along with some of the wiring around them.

"I don't suppose there is a place we can get som spare parts around here, is there?" Corran had meant this to be a rhetorical question, but Whistler chirped a happy affirmative. "There is? Where," asked Corran, barely daring to believe his own luck. Corran took his datapad out and attached one of the leads to Whistler. The droid's response appeared on the screen.

"An old Mandalorian camp with hidden caches of supplies hidden around it? Just how old is it?"

Whistler blatted harshly in response. It didn't matter how old the supplies were, there was no other way to repair the ship.

"Okay, okay, you're right. Lets get you back in the ship so we can go down there."

After helping Whistler back into the droid socket, Corran hopped into the cockpit and sealed the hatch. He had no engines, but repulsorlifts were sufficient for atmospheric travel. Whistler designated the Mandalorian camp as being five hundred kilometers to the south.

After an hour's steady travel, the repulsorlifts let out a screech of protest and all but one of them failed. Corran had just enough power left to land the ship safely before the final repulsorlift engine sputtered and died.

"Whistler, how far are we from the camp?" asked Corran. He hoped it wasn't far. Whisler responded nervously. Thirty kilometers. "Well, I guess I'm legging it from here. You stay and repair what you can, but don't leave the top of the ship. If anything comes along, go back into your socket and don't move. A predator is less likely to attack you if it doesn't see you moving around."

Corran grabbed a pack of rations, his blaster pistol, and his blaster carbine. He bade Whistler farewell and trekked off into the gloomy forest. Whistler moaned one mournful note and got to work.

End of chapter 2

Part 3 coming soon!


	3. Chapter 3

Star Wars

_The Chronicles of Horn_

Chapter 3

Corran collapsed against a moldy tree. It had been only an hour and a half since he had left Whistler and his ship and already his blaster carbine was half empty. Immediately after setting off he had been attacked by vicious little creatures with huge jaws and rather googley eyes. He remembered reading in Whistler's report that these were cannocks. Corran had also encountered a strange creature that appeared to be a mix between a reptile and a feline. _At the rate I'm using up my ammunition, I'll be lucky to get close to one of the equipment caches. If there aren't any weapons there, I'm not going to make it back to the ship._

Corran stood up after only a minute's rest. _In a place like Dxun, to stay still is to die._ Corran checked his datapad to make sure he was headed in the right direction and set off. According to Whistler's maps, Corran had only another five kilometers to go. Although he moved at a brisk pace, Corran knew that running to get to his destination faster was a mistake. _The faster I move, the more likely it is that I'll run into something unwelcome without even noticing until the last second. Plus running all the way there means wheezing and panting all the way back. _

When Corran was two kilometers out from the camp, every bone in his body screamed at him to run. With his feelings of uneasiness growing into dread, Corran started jogging, then running, and finally sprinting. He barely got fifty paces when he heard it. Something crashing through the underbrush. Something huge. Panic took over and Corran shot off in the direction of the Mandalorian camp like a blaster bolt. He knew he couldn't outrun what ever predator was chasing him, but he may be able to find cover. _There should only be one kilometer left to the camp. _Corran looked back over his shoulder and caught his first glance of his tormentor. It was a gigantic lizard with green scales, razor teeth and four horns, two above its face and two below. The creature was at least fifteen feet long and weighed enough to make the ground vibrate with each footfall. The beast moved with incredible speed considering its massive girth, short legs, and thick, stumpy tail. It was galloping on all fours with a grace befitting a kath hound.

Corran took a shot back over his shoulder with his blaster pistol and was rewarded with a brief pause in the pounding vibrations and an earsplitting roar. Corran racked his brain, trying to remember what he'd read from Whistler's databanks. _I remeber this, it's a boma. Its only soft spots are its eyes and underbelly. To get through its armor you'd need explosives or heavy laser cannons...or a lightsaber. _"None of them on hand," he panted dismally.

It did not take long for the boma to start running at top speed after Corran again. Corran snapped off a few more shots but they obviously missed because the boma didn't falter. Corran whipped around the bole of a huge tree and saw a small cavern in a rock face. He ran inside, thanking the Force for his lithe build and below average height. If it was a squeeze for Corran, there was no way the gigantic creature could fit into the small tunnel.

After catching his breath for a few moments, Corran decided to continue deeper into the cave in the hopes of finding an alternate way out. _Preferably one with no bomas nearby, _he thought grimly. It was dank and moist in the cave with large stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The passage was obviously eroded away by the passage of water over thousands of years. After going a few hundred meters into the cave, Corran came to a thick door made of stone. _This must be one of the weapon caches! How can I get in though?_

Corran looked around the door for a few moments and found no means of opening it. He was about to give up when he noticed that the wall next to the door was weak and crumbling. Corran set his blaster carbine up to the maximum and emptied the magazine into the wall. Flakes of rock and dust flew off of the wall and obscured everything. After a few minutes the dust settled and Corran could see the wall. It was still there. "SIthspawn!" Corran cursed and kicked the wall in frustration. At his kick, the wall collapsed into the chamber behind the door.

Corran stepped through the hole and looked around the cache. There were several old plasteel canisters scattered around the chamber. Corran walked to the nearest container and opened it up. Inside was a huge plasma rifle that made his blaster carbine look like a flashlight. Corran picked the weapon up and slung it over his shoulder. Corran looked inside all of the containers and found a multitude of blasters, grenades, mines, and swords. After adding a vibrosword, five thermal detonators, and a heavy blaster pistol to the plasma rifle he had already grabbed and donning some medium armor over his flight suit, he felt ready to go to the Mandalorian camp and get the parts he needed for his ship.

Corran ducked out through the hole he'd made in the cave wall and walked back down to the cave entrance. He took a moment to look around before leaving the shelter of the cave. If the boma was still around, he wanted to know about it before it jumped him. While he was looking, his mind wandered back to the incident over Tatooine. Two things about that battle had confused him. First, what did Isard want with a backward desert planet anyway? The former head of Imperial Intelligence was not a force wielder and wouldnot carethat Luke Skywalker hadlived there. The Emperor was almost a year dead and the remnants of the Empire did not have the resources to waste ships and personnel on patrols in the Outer Rim. The second issue that had him stumped was why he chose to come to Onderon in the first place. His father had always told him to follow his gut feelings and Onderon had seemed a natural choice. As Corran thought about it, he realized that he'd only heard of Onderon in a few holodramas depicting the Sith Wars, and did not know nearly enough about the planet to make choosing it as his destination logical in any way.

_I'll puzzle this out later. Right now I just want off this rock._ Corran determined that the area was clear and set off in the direction of the Mandalorian camp. He checked his location and determined that he would arrive at the camp in about ten minutes if nothing went wrong.

Corran heard a snapping branch and turned around quickly. The boma was trying for an ambush attack. Realizing that its prey had noticed it, the boma roared and charged. The former CorSec agent brought his plasma rifle in line with the boma and fired. Corran thought that the kickback would have cracked a few ribs if not for the body armor he was wearing. Despite the forceful backlash, the shot did have its desired effect. The monstrous rifle's blast nearly blew the boma in half.

Corran knew that the noise from the rifle and the stink from the dead boma would bring other predators. Hopefully the dead beast would distract any potential threats. Corran continued on towards the base. He felt more confident with the weapons at hand, but he knew that he wouldn't hold out long if he couldn't leave the moon. Corran also had another problem. Night was falling...

to be continued


	4. Chapter 4

**Star Wars**

_The Chronicles of Horn_

Chapter 4

Corran continued on from the old Mandalorian weapons cache. The reek of burnt flesh hung in the air around the boma beast that Corran had just blasted. He had to leave th area before the corpse drew predators. After a quick look at his locator, Corran set off towards the ancient Mandalorian outpost. Most of the trip was uneventful, a few cannocks and maalras jumped him from time to time, but his new weaponry made them a minimal threat. It appeared that the boma's body had indeed drawn off most of the predators in the area. It was almost midnight on Dxun (it was actually 2:30pm Coruscant time) when Corran first saw a delapidated relay dish poking out of the trees. Only the light reflected off the planet Onderon allowed him to see anything. _It's a good thing Onderon produces so much light,_ Corran thought,_ I don't want to think about what a light would bring out of this jungle. _

Corran cautiously walked through the corroded gate leading into the base. It wasn't much of a base anymore, the jungle had almost completely reclaimed the old structures. Corran went into one of the rusty buildings, it was a dormitory of some kind. One door caught Corran's eye. Unlike the other doors, it was shut tight and there was a chance that the inside remained free of jungle life. Corran tried to pull the door open, but discovered that it would only open inder power. Corran gave the other rooms a quick check and, in the last one, saw a large vac sealed chest. He opened it up and found a cryogenic power cell, perfectly preserved in the no-atmosphere chest for all these years. Corran took the cell down to the closed door and hotwired it into the door controls. Now under power, the door opened with a push of a button. The inside of the room smelled of mildew and decay, but it had no jungle creatures in it. Corran closed the door behind him and decided to spend the night in the room. He would have prefered to keep going, but he had a gut feeling that he didn't want to explore the camp when it was dark. _At least I have a cot in here, _thought Corran as he sat down on the rickety piece of furniture. After checking to make sure the cot would hold his weight, Corran settled down and fell quickly asleep.

Corran was awakened by the shrill beeping of his wrist chronometer. He had set it to wake him up at 7:30 am. Corran got up and ate some of his rations. _If only I had a 'fresher so I could take a shower, _Corran mused to himself, _but at least I'm rested up. _ Corran opened the door to the room after collecting his gear up off the floor. Outside was another dusky, rainy Dxun day. Corran knew that the parts he needed would be found in the hangar on the other side of the base. As Corran approached the hangar, he started having prickles up and down his back. He looked in the large hangar door and saw nothing but several plasteel containers. Corran still had inexplicable feelings of fear about what was inside the hangar. _Best to get it over with now rather than wait to find out what's wrong the hard way,_ Corran thought as he took a few tentative steps into the hangar.

Almost immediately Corran saw the problem. There was a hole in the right wall that lead through to another hangar bay. Inside that bay was a huge creature. It was a full grown drexyl. The creature was asleep, but was showing signs of waking up. Corran decided to try to sneak across the hangar to get to the containers. If he could just get the parts he needed, he could leave before the drexyl woke up. Corran edged silently through the hangar and looked in several containers before finding all of the parts he needed. They were old and not in the best shape, but they would do for a quick fix. As Corran turned around to leave, he saw the drexyl. It was standing on its nest, staring at Corran. Corran knew he was only alive because he had caught the beast off guard. Before it could decide what to do about him, Corran activated three adhesive grenades and threw them in quick succession. One was a dud, but the other two exploded and effectively glued the drexyl to the floor. The adhesive wasn't made to hold forever even when it was new. These grenades were thousands of years old. Corran would have tried to kill the beast, but knew that he would only have one shot. Even now he dared not throw a frag grenade for fear that it would destroy the glue and not the drexyl. _I'd better quit while I'm alive and run. _

Corran ran out of the hangar and base. He ran until his lungs burned and his head hurt. He looked around to gain his bearings and saw the boma he had killed the previous day. It was nothing but a skeleton now. When Corran had checked which direction the ship was in, he headed off towards it at a quick pace. Corran was about a kilometer away from the X-wing when he heard a bone chilling screech. The drexyl had freed itself and followed him and was now flying over the top of the jungle. It crashed through the foliage behind Corran and landed on the ground. Corran didn't wait to see what would happen. As he ran, Corran activated his comlink.

"Whistler, get in your socket and prep the X-wing's laser cannons," Corran said between gasps. Corran remembered that the X-wing was facing south and he was coming from the west. Corran took a turn and curved around the clearing, now fifty meters ahead, until he was directly in front of his ship. He burst into the clearing with the drexyl hard on his heels. Corran shouted "Fire Whistler!" and dove to the ground. The X-wings large cannons cut loose and scarlet energy slammed into the drexyl, all but vaporizing it.

Corran walked up to the ship as Whistler was popping out of his socket. "Thanks Whisler, I would have been done for if you hadn't been there." The droid warbled proudly. Now that they had the parts they needed, they could repar the ship and get off this nightmare of a planet.

**More to come. Sorry for the long delay. Writers' block.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Star Wars**

_The Chronicles of Horn_

Chapter 5

Corran and Whistler took just under an hour to finish repairing th X-wing. After nearly being devoured by a drexyl, Corran wanted this moon far behind him. He still had to give thought to the Onderonian fleet that had caused his detour to Dxun. Corran activated his long range sensors and oriented them towards space. _The Onderonian patrol is still out there, but if I blast out of here as fast as I can, they probably won't be able to call for support before I jump. _As an extra precaution, Corran had Whistler store 5 random hyperspace jumps to uninhabited systems in his memory. There was one for each possible exit vector from Dxun. If the Onderon space force managed to call in support and Corran couldn't program a suitable location fast enough, a simple order toWhistler would send them off to the system whose vector they were on.

Corran went through his initial systems check and activated the X-wing's newly repaired repulsorlifts. He goosed the throttle forward and lifted the starfighter towards space. It only took about one minute before Whistler warbled a warning that the ship had been spotted by an Onderonian cruiser's sensors.

"That's our cue," Corran said grimly. "Don't forget about our plan"

Whistler blatted out a retort that droids never forget. Just then, several starfighters appeared from behind the enemy cruiser.

"_Sithspawn!_" Corran swore, "That cruiser must have hangar bays. Whistler, activate contingency plan gamma."

Whistler tootled an affirmative and the fighter streaked forward into hyperspace. Having escaped danger yet again, Corran sat back to collect his thoughts. After a few moments of quiet contemplation, Corran remembered the situation he was in.

"Whistler, what system did we end up jumping towards," Corran asked. "We won't last much longer without fuel and supplies. Also, we should probably have a real mechanic take a look at the ship. The last thing we need is our quick-fix giving out on us." Whistler had a few choice comments to this remark. "No, I don't have any doubts or reservations about your ability to repair the X-wing: Corran said consolingly. "But even you must admit that those were hardly ideal circumstances, and I tend to get a bit nervous about using parts that are more than a millenium old."

The droid agreed to this and followed up by displaying the coordinates of the system that they were heading to: M-175490-J _The system doesn't even have a name, _Corran thought. _It's just an Old Republic reference number._ These numbers were given to systems that were scouted and plotted, but deemed unsuitable for colonization. After pulling up a map of the systems surrounding M-175490-J, Corran felt his stomach sink. Five systems were in range, considering the X-wing's low fuel supplies. Two of these were desolate like M-175490-J. One was just a star with no satelites, either natural or artificial. One was the system of Eriadu, which was stronly allied with the Empire. The final system was Dessou. It had a "colony" on its fourth planet. This settlement was well known as a smugglers' den.

Corran was left with three choices, all distasteful. He could try to jump to a more distant system and almost certainly perish when his fighter ran out of fuel and dropped him into the void. The second option was to jump to Eriadu. He knew that Kirtan Loor, the Imperial liason from his old job at CorSec would have certainly trumped up some charges against him by now. Corran would have been shocked if Loor hadn't managed to get him a deathmark yet. If he went to Eriadu, he would be executed if he was caught. The final option was to go to Dessou. Corran, as a CorSec officer, albeit a former CorSec officer, was gifted and cursed with a deep and strong distrust for anybody who broke the law for a living. The fact that his father and grandfather had both been CorSec officers as well made the distrust almost genetic. The unfortunate fact was that Dessou was his best chance of not dying, although the possibilty was not removed. Corran was sure that there were several people on Dessou who had done a stint at the prison world of Kessel thanks to him or his family. Most of them would likely love a chance to blast him into atoms.

"Well I guess we have no choice Whistler. Even though there is bound to be something resmbling security on Dessou, they won't be inclined to run a full scan and background check like the fanatics on Eriadu." Corran sighed and punched in the coordinates. "Activate one of our alternate transponders, it would probably be a good idea not to scream my name out as soon as I go in range of their sensors."

His new transponder identified him as an information broker by the name of Varn Dillem. A false file attached showed that he worked primarily out of the Correlian sector, which explained the CorSec colors of his ship. Many smugglers tried to make their ships look like local military from their system. Though computer transponders would make simple visual disguises obsolete, the few seconds that could be gained by it were precious. Corran did a thorough scan of his falsified identity, making sure that he could fit into his character effectively.

At that moment, they dropped out of hyperspace in M-175490-J, and after a quick course adjustment, accelerated back to faster than light travel.


End file.
